The Stormy Inheritance

As you sit inside the marina’s office, cars outside take detours through the parking lot. Probably avoiding the flooded streets and fallen trees that have become all too common in your region. A family on a station wagon heading out of the city passes by slowly following the traffic, their car packed to the brim with boxes loosely covered by a tarp. They probably decided to move out of the stormy hell your city has become in the past few years. As they move out of sight, the heavy cold rain intensifies until you can’t see the cars outside anymore.

Inside the office, a bored looking marina attendant named Maya stores the marina’s copies of the documents you just signed. As they rummage through cabinets, the office’s windows creak and thud with invisible gusts of wind while the phone rings incessantly in the next room. On the table in front of you, your copies of the documents. You stare at your signature besides your inky fingerprints and remember your heart trying to beat its way out of your chest as you signed them. Your shaky hands made it look like some random person tried to impersonate you. And a random person you may as well be. After all, you won enough money to become anyone you want now. A 40-foot electric sailboat with solar panels, a small island near the equator and enough money after taxes to pay your and your partner's debts. And you got all that for the small price of being the closest relative to someone you’ve never heard of. After a few legal meetings, fingerprinting and signing, the money was sorted out and said to reach you by today’s end. And now that you’ve signed the marina’s paperwork, you’re also officially the owner of a huge boat. Maya slides you a key fob with a touch screen and then points through the window at the only boat on the huge pier. “All yours,” they say, closing a rusty cabinet and heading inside another room to pick up the still ringing phone. Despite the cloudy and stormy weather outside, the boat shines in your eyes with the light of a bright future ahead. The numbers don’t lie. With the money, you could afford to pay your partner’s gaming debt and have some left to move out of the city, maybe even to a lower middle class neighborhood. And that’s without counting the boat and island. You haven’t talked to anyone through the process. Your partner’s latest gaming debt incident had you taking a few weeks away from them just before you got the news about the inheritance. They’ve been sleeping with a friend of theirs since. Thoughts of how your childhood friend, Linn, and your partner, Emma, would react to it all cross your mind.

“Are you looking for sailors?” the attendant asks, taking you out of your headspace. The attendant moves in a hurry picking up keys, some papers and a small backpack from one of the steel cabinets. “I can sail your boat mostly by myself, please,” the attendant says with desperation in their voice as you look at them confused. They break eye contact as their smartphone rings and a helicopter flies above rattling the windows further. “Please, I live upstairs. I can be ready to go in a few minutes. You don’t have to pay anything and you can just drop me out of the danger zone,” the attendant pleads, pointing to their phone screen. A red alert on their phone screen reads: 11:45 AM - SEVERE WEATHER ALERT: Flash Flood Risk

EXTREME FLOOD WARNING: CATASTROPHIC flash flooding expected in next 2-3 hours. Storm surge of 15+ feet predicted. IMMEDIATE EVACUATION ORDERED for all areas below 20ft elevation. DO NOT DELAY. Roads expected to become impassable. Seek higher ground NOW. This is a LIFE-THREATENING situation.

National Weather Service - Emergency Alert System

On your phone, a flood of notifications for missed calls and messages from Emma and Linn. Between them, emergency alerts like the attendant’s.

Another helicopter passes flying so low it rattles the windows. The door of the office opens up briefly as the attendant leaves, car honks and wind howls barge in before it closes. Outside you see a huge traffic jam on the parking lot and further on the main road leading outside the city. Motorcycles and bicycles crisscross the sea of cars and people braving the weather on their way out of the city towards higher ground.

Your messages queue read: 6:00 AM - WEATHER ADVISORY: Heavy Rain Expected 7:15 AM - WEATHER UPDATE: Increased Rainfall Warning 7:25 AM - Emma: Miss you. Stay cozy in all that rain! 7:47 AM - Emma: rain got me a day off work… Can I go over? 8:30 AM - FLOOD WATCH: Local Stream Monitoring 8:31 AM - Linn: Home alone today. Crashing at your place now. Ate your chocolate, bring tampons. 11:45 AM - SEVERE WEATHER ALERT: Flash Flood Risk 11:46 AM - Emma: Friend and neighbor are thinking of leaving the city. Are you ok? 11:49 AM - Linn: Where are you? 11:49 AM - Linn: Flooded area is too big. Normalization will be slow. We can’t stay. 11:49 AM - Linn: Packing your documents and some things. Most of the city will be underwater. 11:50 AM - Emma: neighbors left. We’re staying, 4th floor should be safe… Where are you? 11:55 AM - Linn: Packed. Getting the bikes out. There’ll be traffic jams. Where are you!?

Linn is mute, usually acts indifferent to the world and doesn’t usually bother communicating even when spoken to. Her urgency makes you even more unsettled.

The door opens. The chaos outside can be heard more clearly. The attendant comes back inside carrying 3 heavy backpacks. “Please, please, gimme access to the boat. I can get it ready while you make up your mind. I can’t leave without your clearance anyway.” the attendant says, tapping the screen on the key fob. A print unlock pop up lights up atop buttons to unlock various boat functionalities, including sails and engines. “In exchange, I stay on the boat until it’s safe... Listen, the boat cannot stay here anyway. It will either be damaged or damage the pier and you would have to pay for that. Come on.”